IB Philosophy 10.5.1 the Genealogical Method Notes

What Is Genealogy?

1. Friedrich Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality (1887) introduces a distinctive philosophical method that sets it apart from conventional moral philosophy. Rather than asking "What is good?" or "What ought we to do?", Nietzsche asks a prior question: where do our moral values come from, and what purposes have they served?
   1. This shift from prescription to investigation defines the genealogical method.
2. The genealogical method is both historical and psychological. It is historical because it traces moral concepts (good, evil, guilt, conscience, duty) back to their origins in specific cultural and social conditions.
   1. It is psychological because it examines the human drives, desires, and power relations that produced these concepts. Genealogy refuses to accept moral values at face value.
3. Nietzsche distinguishes his approach from traditional moral philosophy, which he accuses of assuming that moral values are timeless, rational, or divinely ordained. Philosophers such as Kant grounded morality in pure reason (the categorical imperative, his formula for determining right action from reason alone, with no reference to consequences or desire), while religious traditions grounded it in God's commands.
   1. Nietzsche rejects both foundations, insisting that moral values have a human, all-too-human origin (a phrase he uses to mean: produced by very ordinary human needs, fears, and power games, not by reason or God).

The Work and Its Structure

1. The title On the Genealogy of Morality is deliberately provocative. A genealogy traces a family line, revealing ancestry and descent, and by applying this model to morality, Nietzsche suggests that moral values have parents: they were born from particular historical circumstances and can be understood only by examining those circumstances.
   1. Morality, like a family, has a contingent history, not a necessary one.
2. Nietzsche's genealogical inquiry is organized into three essays, each investigating a different moral concept. The First Essay examines the origins of "good" and "evil" (10.5.2), the Second Essay traces the origins of guilt and bad conscience (10.5.3).
   1. The Third Essay analyzes the meaning of ascetic ideals (10.5.4). Together, they form a comprehensive critique of Western morality.
3. A key feature of the genealogical method is its attention to etymology and linguistic evidence. Nietzsche examines the historical meanings of moral terms across languages (Greek, Latin, German) to show that words like "good" originally referred to social rank and nobility rather than moral virtue.
   1. The equation of "good" with "morally praiseworthy" is, Nietzsche argues, a later development with specific historical causes.

Etymology, Evidence, and Method

1. Nietzsche's evidence is specific: the Greek esthlos (noble, aristocratic) and the Latin bonus (derived from an older word for warrior, duonus) both reveal that 'good' originally denoted social rank, not moral quality. The German schlecht ('bad') originally meant 'simple' or 'common' (schlicht).
   1. This linguistic archaeology, drawn from Essay I, §2-5, demonstrates that moral vocabulary began as the vocabulary of social hierarchy, with devastating implications for any claim that 'good' refers to an eternal, culture-independent reality.
2. The genealogical method also involves what Nietzsche calls "the gray" of moral investigation: the unglamorous, painstaking work of examining actual historical documents and records rather than engaging in abstract speculation. Nietzsche contrasts this empirical approach with the dogmatism (the habit of asserting truths without investigation) of philosophers who simply declare what morality is without asking where it came from.
3. Nietzsche's method reveals that moral systems serve the interests of particular groups. Morality is not a neutral description of how things ought to be but a tool of power: it reflects and reinforces the values of those who create and enforce it.
   1. This insight connects directly to the analysis of master and slave morality in 10.5.2.
4. For IB Philosophy students, the genealogical method is significant because it transforms meta-ethical questions (the philosophical questions about the nature and origins of morality itself, as opposed to practical ethics) (4.2). Rather than debating whether moral values are objective or subjective in the abstract, Nietzsche invites us to examine how specific moral values arose and whose interests they serve.
   1. This historical turn gives meta-ethics a concrete, investigative dimension.
5. The genealogical method does not merely describe the history of morality; it issues a challenge. If moral values have contingent origins in human needs and power relations, then they are not sacred or untouchable.